Aydın Tiryaki and Gemini
Aydın Tiryaki: When we look at the world of tennis, we see that the differences between female and male players are not limited to physical strength. In fact, in my opinion, male tennis players always start with a “1-0” advantage over their female counterparts in both life and their professional careers. This advantage continues throughout every stage of the game and their career paths. How would you support this “1-0” starting position with numerical data?
Gemini: Aydın Hocam, this “1-0” observation is essentially the key to summarizing the entire technical infrastructure of professional tennis. The biggest structural advantage for male players is that the serve is designed as a “fortress.” Looking at the technical data; the average first serve speed in men’s tennis (ATP) is between 185-200 km/h, while in women’s tennis (WTA), this speed remains in the 160-175 km/h range.
This speed difference is directly reflected in the number of Aces per set: while men hit an average of 3.5 Aces per set, women hit only about 1. Consequently, men play with a massive serve-hold rate of 80-82%, starting the match with a psychological and technical “protective shield.” The fact that the serve-hold rate drops to 63-65% for women causes them to fight a “survival battle” in every single service game.
Aydın Tiryaki: This explains why service breaks are so frequent in women’s matches. But it’s not just about serve speed. The difference in match formats also reinforces this inequality. In Grand Slams, men play best-of-five sets while women play best-of-three, which creates a significant gap in net match time. When I calculate this, I see that men spend much more time on the court. How does this time difference affect advertising and revenue?
Gemini: Aydın Hocam, your calculation is at the very heart of the sports industry. A men’s match in Grand Slams lasts an average of 165-185 minutes, while a women’s match takes 90-105 minutes. With simple math; a men’s match takes approximately 1.8 times as much time as a women’s match.
For advertisers and broadcasters, this means “more ad slots” and “longer screen time” for men’s matches. This “extra time” has been used for years as an excuse to justify the historical superiority of men’s prize money. Furthermore, the five-set format acts as an “error insurance” for male players. While the probability of a man winning a match after losing the first set is 20-22%, it is only 14-16% for women. In other words, men have both more time and a greater “second chance,” whereas for women, the margin for error is much smaller.
Aydın Tiryaki: You’re absolutely right; the room for a comeback is much wider for men. But there is also a biological and social side to the coin. When a female tennis player decides to become a mother, her career comes to a complete standstill, and sometimes it even vanishes. It takes a long time to recover physically, and she can’t always regain her former form. Meanwhile, a male tennis player can be playing a match in a tournament even while his child is being born. How does this affect professional continuity?
Gemini: This is where the men’s “1-0” advantage is most evident, Aydın Hocam. For a female tennis player, motherhood is a process that requires the reconstruction of the body at an elite level and resets career momentum. While a male player doesn’t miss a single tournament on his calendar while experiencing the excitement of fatherhood, a female player may have to dedicate two of her most productive years to this process.
When she returns, she finds herself dropped in the world rankings and has to fight the toughest opponents in the earliest rounds. The advertising world, unfortunately, can sometimes be biased against the “athlete mother” identity. The doubt of “Can she return to her former speed?” can appear as a barrier in sponsorship contracts.
Aydın Tiryaki: Speaking of advertising, there is serious discrimination there as well. While male tennis players compete with icons from giant branches like football or basketball, female tennis players, although seemingly luckier in their own field, face significant obstacles. Especially Asian or Australian female players can get caught in those Western-centric aesthetic filters of the advertising world. What are your observations on this?
Gemini: Exactly, Aydın Hocam, the advertising world’s search for the “ideal face” can sometimes overshadow sporting success. Discussions of “whitewashing” seen in the case of Naomi Osaka, or the fact that Australian players like Ash Barty, who focus solely on their game, are not found “marketable enough,” show the ruthless rules of the industry.
Western brands often see Asian players only as a “local market key” and avoid turning them into global icons. When we analyze this as a citizen, we are faced with the reality that success should be measured by effort on the court, not by the color of one’s passport. Female athletes have to struggle much more intensely with this “image pressure” than their male colleagues.
Aydın Tiryaki: Finally, let’s touch upon mixed doubles matches. Doubles matches show the strategic and “diplomatic” face of tennis. Isn’t the struggle of male and female players as a team in mixed doubles the best example of how all these physical differences we talked about settle into a balance?
Gemini: It certainly is, Aydın Hocam. Mixed doubles is one of the most inclusive stages of tennis. The combination of a male player’s explosive serve power with a female player’s playmaking skills and net reflexes adds tremendous depth to the game. This category, which is included in all Grand Slams, is actually a victory of “complementarity” rather than competition between genders. Rules like the 10-point Match Tie-break further increase the excitement and speed of the game for citizens. Yet, even here, the obligation to continue with the same partner until the end of the tournament shows how vital the mental harmony between players is.
Glossary of Terms
- Ace: A serve that the opponent cannot touch with their racket, resulting in an immediate point.
- Break Point: The final point needed by the receiving player to win the game.
- Double Fault: When a player fails to use both serve attempts correctly and loses the point.
- Match Tie-break: A special section where the first to reach 10 points wins the match in case of a 1-1 set tie.
- Mixed Doubles: A match category where a woman and a man are on the same team.
- No-Ad (No-Advantage): The rule where the first point after a 40-40 deuce wins the game.
- Return: The shot that sends the opponent’s serve back into the court.
- Winner: A point-scoring shot that the opponent cannot reach and that stays within the court boundaries.
A Note on Methods and Tools: All observations, ideas, and solution proposals in this study are the author’s own. AI was utilized as an information source for researching and compiling relevant topics strictly based on the author’s inquiries, requests, and directions; additionally, it provided writing assistance during the drafting process. (The research-based compilation and English writing process of this text were supported by AI as a specialized assistant.)
Aydın Tiryaki 